The Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Travel While You’re Young

Traveling is something many of us should do, but rarely have the opportunity to do. Instead of waiting for your chance to travel, make the time while you’re young to see the world. Here’s five good reasons why you should travel while you’re young:

Traveling Gives You a New Perspective

If you’ve grown up in a tiny rural community like I have, you’ve gone to school with the same people since kindergarten and you know everyone in your town. You’re around people that act in the same way and have the same mindset on things. Traveling opens your eyes to the many different kinds of people that are out there.

While we’ve been taught from a young age that strangers are “bad,” striking up a conversation with a local can be the best way to learn about them and the place you’re visiting. Most people have a more positive experience on a bus commute when they chat with a stranger rather than sitting in solitude.

Talking to locals gives you your greatest insight into the culture of the place you’re visiting, along with perspectives different from your own. They can always teach you new things and they make you realize that the world is so much bigger than the place you grew up. You have the opportunity to make lasting friendships that will impact who you are as a person.

Traveling Makes You Appreciate What You Have

We have a tendency to take things for granted when we’re young. Often, parents support you through school and you aren’t left wanting anything.

Traveling gives a wakeup call and exposes you to the reality that a lot of others experience every day. Poverty is a very real issue throughout the world. In most popular travel destinations, you will see homeless people begging on the streets. Traveling opens your eyes to what the world is really like for some people and helps you to empathize with them and their situation.

It’s different to experience something firsthand rather than see pictures or watch it on television.

Traveling Can Teach You Things That School Can’t

School is a wonderful place to learn all things academic, but it also has you trapped in the same building during the years when you absorb the most information and are the most impressionable.

Traveling can teach you about life outside the classroom. It gives you the chance to see how other people and cultures interact outside of the town where you live. You get to experience an entirely different world from the one you see every day, even if it’s just a day trip to another state or a big city you’ve never been to.

If you’re someone who wasn’t a big fan of school, traveling gives you the chance to learn about things on your own terms. You aren’t force-fed information. You can choose the sights that you want to see and the things that you want to learn. You get to immerse yourself in the architecture and beauty of another place instead of looking at pictures and reading a bland history book. It gives you an entirely different learning experience.

Traveling Helps You Learn Responsibility

Even if you’re on an organized trip, there’s always some level of responsibility. You have to manage your spending money to make sure you have enough. You have to keep your passport and any other documents organized, because losing something like that would have some serious consequences. There are itineraries to keep track of and follow.

If you’re traveling independently, you have plane tickets, hotels and transportation to worry about as well. It gives you a crash course on planning and organizing responsibly — skills that are needed as you go about life.

You Only Live Once

None of us know how much time we’re going to have on this planet. You need to seize every opportunity as it comes along so you don’t have “what ifs” in the future. Whether it’s traveling to a faraway country, or just various cities a few hours away, each trip is a unique chance to learn more and do something that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Traveling can help shape the person that you were meant to be. If you keep putting it off, there’s a chance that you’ll never get to experience everything you want to. Get out into the world and witness everything that it has to offer!

Kacey Bradley

Lifestyle - Wedding - Travel

Welcome to The Drifter Collective - a lifestyle blog sharing my love for travel, style, wedding inspiration, homemaking and so much more!
Some people call me a traveler, while others refer to me as 'the well cultured friend" who drifts into everything. Pun intended. :)